


to the final spring

by wegotodecember (imaginedecember)



Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Implied Arthur/John/Abigail, M/M, Sexual Imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-21 07:33:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16572353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginedecember/pseuds/wegotodecember
Summary: "Something true, something real...What a pair of fools."After the ending, after it all, John finds what keeps him going.***SPOILERS for the ending of the game***





	to the final spring

**Author's Note:**

> **THERE ARE SPOILERS FOR THE ENDING AND WHOLE GAME. THIS TAKES PLACE IN THE EPILOGUES**. In particular, this includes the ending where Arthur chooses John and Arthur has good honor.  
>  **  
> **  
> Honestly, I wrote this because I sobbed at the ending. I was shaking by the end. Arthur and his journey of character has meant so much to me. It is a gorgeous story and one of these days, I will able to do more than just have watched someone else play it.  
>    **  
> **  
> Please, again, **heed the spoiler warning, as well as the implication of Arthur/John/Abigail and slight sexual imagery as well as the very obvious Major Character Death warning**.  
> 

John might’ve been hovering. Might’ve been. But Abigail had been gone a while and she could handle herself damn it but there was something intrinsic in him, a wave that always ushered in when time was going far longer than it should’ve been and those you loved were gone.

It was a familiar wave undulating beneath the surface. It had been three once. Three waves. But now-.

A horse. A jangle. A huff.

John turned to the rise of the hill, and breathed easy, slow as Abigail came up and over the rising earth. Jack was screeching, excited about what gifts his momma could ‘a been late for. Gifts. Plural. The book cradled to Abigail’s breasts. Gifts. Plural.

John helped her down, held her warmth tight to his chest even as she bent to scoop up John and hold him. Watched as she gave away mountains of candy, watched as she made his eyes glitter with all the ways he could turn them into buried treasure. Watched as…as…

She set him down. He went running. She handed John her gift. And damn. John wished he could run too. Because-.

Huh.

“Jesus, Abigail, is this another one of them stories? About Lancelot or something? Some stupid heroes?” Abigail huffed and jabbed her thumb on the engraving sloppily imprinted on the cover. And oh. “Tacitus Kilgore.” He choked out the name.

Abigail reached in, and flipped past the cover which John’s eyes and fingers were still stuck on like they had both lost their sight and touch and were scrambling to catch on to that name, that foolish name, that-.

“And look at whose it’s dedicated to John!” Abigail was getting giddy? Giddy? “Oh, I knew it had to be Arthur when I saw that name but this, this sealed it.”

John was spinning under night sky. He was whispering a plea to a horse, take me home. He was…he was-.

“To my dearest, foolish, hot headed piss in a barrel, Rip Van Winkle.” The words were less of a choke and more of a throw up. A sudden hot re-introduction of the third wave undulating beneath his heart, shocking it into gear, into making his fingers flip to the first chapter. His eyes could see again and what he read was Arthur’s life splayed out before him with bits and splatters of random poetry and scenic devotions, of healing nature and her cradle, of the gang and its very stupid turn to vengeance business, of, sweet Jesus. “Abigail.” He breathed her name and she leaned in close to see what he was reading but he slammed that damn thing shut.

“What? What?” Abigail tried to pry it but John shoved it down his pants and turned to go. “Oh come on, John Marston, like I don’t know what you or I would’ve done to that handsome Morgan devil. C’mon! They was a burning them, John! Them and so many other books like it. Had to have been a reason.”

And it sounded like the whole time Abigail had been riding home she had indeed been digging for that reason. And that. That John wasn’t gonna poke.

Was just gonna pretend that nothing happened, that John didn’t wish something would’ve happened, that leaving Arthur on that damn cliff to just-.

“I knew you loved him, John. I would ‘a been a fool to not have seen it.” John’s eyes were burning and he couldn’t turn towards her, not even as her voice become as soft and muddled as sand and earth clumped at the edge of a lake. Her touch, kind, gentle as she wrapped hands around his tensed up shoulders, so tensed up that he felt like they were trying to cover his ears and swallow his head, swallow the memory of that cliff, that – That fucking brother of his that he left to die on that cliff. Heroes. Jesus. “I think I could ‘a loved him, too what with him saving me and Jack. Maybe in a better time. In a time where he didn’t get that damn disease that everyone’s got these days.” Then, harsher, her hands matching her voice and picking up a rough rolling rhythm along his muscles. “I think he didn’t have the gall to admit it to you in person but in writing and action, he made up for that. He sent you back to me, didn’t he? He sent me and Jack out, safe. Whaddya gonna do about that John? Just wallow up there on your horse for hours and hours? Huh? You gonna leave us again John because you couldn’t admit that Arthur Morgan had a spot here-.” She smoothed her hands across his chest and slammed a palm down over his heart. It made him oof, it made his heart jack rabbit, it made him want to hunt his damn heart down and skin it. “Like I have a spot? Like Jack has a spot? Be honest, John, please.” And she was begging. Begging for John to just say it.

So, he screwed up that damn book tight in his hands and said, “I don’t know.”

And that was all she was gonna get. He slipped away, like she said he would, on his horse, under the spinning night sky, and he…he read, by burning camp light, those passages that were the hardest to swallow. He could hear Arthur in his ear, could feel him underneath him. Pushing him to just go, trip and slide away from that mountainside and be what again? A man. A man. A man who had to leave someone to die. Alone. How gut wrenching. How so un-in love it was. He vomited twice. He almost shoved a gun barrel to his head. Fools. The pair of them.

In a perfect world, yeah, in a perfect world, Arthur’s writings would’ve been true. No dark lungs. Just…peace. Love and friendship. Honest work, like Abigail had begged.

And John felt those words as he pulled back the bow, watched as a deer bent to lick the river water. Deer. It was like it was Arthur’s spirt, bending towards the river, to sit there and sketch, to rest and write…to…die.

John lowered the bow.

How many times had Arthur done something like this? Dreamt of deer and the like, rivers and such, of the people he cared for so damn fiercely imbued in that deer’s spirit, of how, yeah, it was a bit late, but he woke to something so clear, so true, and thought of how awful it was to be in the vengeance business, how, well, John wasn’t sure what was the turning point, age maybe or some encounter with some nobody who turned into a somebody or the coming claws of death, but whatever it was, Arthur had swung into thinking that people were real living, breathing people stuck in some shit hole darkness and offing them over some problem, debt usually, which was everybody’s problem nowadays, was not only foolish but despicable.

What were those words that were swimming around in Arthur’s head? Were they the same words that got imprinted into Arthur’s drawings, a mind trying to ease still stuck on some words that’d never quit?

Words like how everyone wished for good, shiny things and how, at the end of the day, love and friendship would be the only things that could lead you through the darkness. Not money. Jesus, no, that was betrayal. That was leaving your damn so-called friends to die after some train robbery.

Jesus, friendship and…and love.

John nearly snapped the bow in half.

And love.

Jesus.

He spat that word out, watched white spit congeal on earth, and nearly spooking himself thinking there was blood mixed in with it. Channeling Arthur like a river current.

He shivered.

Tugged his serape over his shoulders. “Arthur, Arthur.” The poor sap’s name came out a rough croon and John felt like howling it.

Leaves. Sudden in its crunch.

Whipped his head up to see the deer bound from river shore to leaves to forest. It paused, though. Turned to stare at John and then straight through.

Something in John just got held up inside him. His breath seemed to stop. Brain and heart thundering slow, rumbling soft. The deer breathed with him. Easy paces.

The deer seemed to nod, seemed to say something to him.

Was this what Arthur dreamed of constantly?

Always the damn deer.

Even when Arthur was younger, John would kick him awake to the tune of Arthur grumbling about deer. Some stupid symbolism poetry shit that John wouldn’t’ve ever gotten. Until now.

This. Here. Now.

Suspended.

Crunch.

The deer was gone between one eye blink and the next.

And he said again, “Arthur, Arthur” and he knew he’d never stop saying it.

Because, yeah, yeah-.

A tree will make a forest. A tree will make a bow.

Which way will you go?

+

On the ride home from, well, wallowing was a great term to use, he couldn’t help but think of that time on the train tracks with Arthur and then that moment, suspended, like with the deer, on that mountain.

How Arthur had told him to go. Take Abigail and Jack and go. The gang didn’t matter anymore. It was nothing now. Just go.

It had sounded so much like a plea. John remembered how silent he got, how Arthur slid into the passionate, rebellious role that John usually took up with ease. But John had gotten so…quiet. Just shut down almost at how Arthur was so damn stubborn and so unwilling to bother anyone else with his diagnosis and the worry that’d surely come afterwards. So damn uncaring about himself. Death was gonna get him so he was dead last on his list of worries. Just cared so damn much about John and Abigail and Jack that they were his top priority. Even if John had just left him. It was forgiveness.

And, yes, the three of ‘em were Arthur’s. Through heart and bone.

If Arthur hadn’t been sick, John would’ve kissed that stupid, foolish idiot. Didn’t need to go digging for gold when Arthur had a heart of it. Damn.

And if they hadn’t been so foolish, they could’ve been kissing from the start.

But John had cold nights to remember Arthur’s warmth. Had moments of strangers to remind him of Arthur’s love and kindness.

It wasn’t much.

Just memories.

But this book, this book that Abigail had found and saved from burning, was a physical, real, true thing.

So.

He handed her the book when he got home and she cradled it, even flipped to the pages that John had previously tried to hide because, heh, really, there was no hiding with this woman. He had the bruises on his ear where she pinched him nice and tight to remind him of that. And a couple of good old scars from wolves that were more than likely channeling Abigail and Arthur’s wrath.

And he smiled, something dug up and rough from lack of use, at her giggles. “John Marston, I didn’t know you’d be-.” Cut her off before she could finish that with a quick, sharp kiss. Yes, okay, John Marston would’ve let Arthur Morgan do anything to him. He was sure everyone in the damn world knew that.

And she snuggled in tight when she got to the end of Arthur’s lament and dream of what could’ve been. She kissed John’s ear, right where she pinched, and smiled. “I wish he was here with us.”

John swallowed a very deer shaped lump. “I wish too.” He coughed a bit, finally said, into a kiss on her shoulder, “I love him. Always will.”

She raised her hand, not to hit, but to bring him in. “I would’ve been right there with you.” He hummed and kept that little noise up even as he moved from her shoulder to snuggle into her hair. “At least we got this.”

He nodded even though the reminder was sorrowfully tinged. “Of course.”

And he went, dreaming of-.

“Just go, John. Be a man. You have a family.”

The words got chopped up a bit not from coughs but from a calmness that somehow shrouded the mind and heart when death was a sure thing. And it wasn’t coughs because this was a dream and Arthur didn’t get that tuberculosis thing. He was safe. He was fine.

And John wasn’t having this whole death thing.

He grabbed Arthur by that damn navy-blue button up and kissed him. Sunk into it like river meeting shore.

The kiss was suspended in quiet dark. One of ‘em was trembling and John was tipping back a bit at Arthur’s solidness, of his somehow unforced force that he exuded.

And damn, damn.

Closed mouth it started out but then Arthur was the one that moved his lips against John in some sort of slow lament like a eulogy and John didn’t like the stink of it. He rose a bit, and dared to open his mouth, to slip his tongue into Arthur’s mouth, his warmth, slick and hot. And…

Arthur laughed, broke the kiss with it and everything. John couldn’t help but huff. “Damn it, Arthur. ‘M trying to do something here.” That just made Arthur laugh more. It sounded close to howling and John pouted. “Arthur Morgan, I don’t know how I’m the fool here!”

Then, Arthur wrapped his arms around John’s shoulders, slid warm and calloused hands from scars to neck, gun killing hands whose fingers switched from triggers to helping, and pressed in until John collapsed into him. He listened. For once. And met Arthur’s smiling lips again. And finally, finally, Arthur opened up under him and, yes, again, for once, John let him lead the kiss, let John slide into his mouth and claim. John’s fingers bent and ached before hooking on to Arthur’s shirt again to keep him nice and close to him and very, very far away from the death that Arthur seemed to have so prettily played out for himself. And that. That.

John broke the kiss, but refused to let Arthur slip. “You’re mine, Arthur Morgan.” Bit that stupid bottom lip of his like punctuation. “You’re mine. Not Micah’s. That rat.” Growled a bit. “Not Dutch. That money hungry fool.” Then, added, for good measure, “You’re mine. And Abigail’s. I’m sure she wouldn’t let me have you just to myself.”

Arthur laughed again but it was soft. And he was smiling. It had reached his eyes. Moon lit and backdropped by mountains. Jesus. John breathed out as Arthur rumbled, “I guess I’m coming with you then.”

John scoffed. “Ain’t no guessing there, brother!”

And there, on that mountainside, the dream was laid to rest.

Written out by Arthur’s hand as the final chapter in an almost burnt to crisp book.

And played out in John’s dreams.

Yes, both unshaken by this fragile crash of worlds, and Arthur’s final spring.

+

 

_There's something that people always do. Go a searching. Exploring. For anything. Somehow, even when it seems when all is good and well, there's food on the table, there's warmth where you sit and where you sleep, there's a live and lovely human beside you on the dark nights, people will always be searching, exploring. An escape. An escape. Hell, a cure. And for some, fucking money of all things._

_Jesus._

_Seasons be changing. People too. And bodies. Bodies change. You drop weight, you...well, you contract whatever the Hell a Tuberculosis is. And you hack when you used to breathe. You isolate when you used to live in camps. You greet death as a fond friend and ease his name into the ears, minds, and hearts of your children, of your loved ones. You warn of his grip, of its grip on you. And when he takes you, my, how you hope it'd be easier for those you'd leave behind._

_I hope it has been easier for you friend, for the one who I know is still listening._

_I hope. By god I hope._

_Yes, my gorgeous Rip Van Winkle and his Lancelot and his Guinevere, I hope, my death hasn't caused much grief, that you'd expect as much and that you find that spring, that honest, good life you've always wanted._

_I will be always be with you._

_In the deer._

_In the mountains._

_Yours,_

_Tacitus Kilgore._


End file.
